In 2022, we awarded the Photo Urbanism Fellowship to Elliot Golden to use photography as a tool for public health and community development alongside the Restorative City project.
The Restorative City: Building Community Wellness through Public Space initiative sought out new ideas through an open request for proposals (RFP) to empower community action across NYC’s five boroughs and elevate public health to a central precept of public policy and urban design. While the selected projects will look at policy and design changes required to confront health inequity, we brought on a Photo Urbanism Fellow to capture the human, personal narratives that exist within community wellness.
Elliott's final exhibition, "Three Lots," is a combination of mixed-media collages and photographs documenting the distinct but related histories of vacant lots, their current condition, and the people and organizations advocating for more equitable and restorative uses of the land. The exhibition was created in collaboration with the East New York Community Land Trust, the Grow NYC ENY Success Garden and on display at the Brooklyn Public Library New Lots Branch in Summer 2023.
> Read more about Elliott's youth photography workshop at the Museum of the City of New York with NeON photography.
> Learn more about the final exhibition.
An ongoing program of the Design Trust for Public Space, the Photo Urbanism program provides fellowships to photographers to create a body of work about the role of public space in New York City, including the opportunity to lead two youth photography workshops and present one final solo exhibition
In 2011, we adopted a new curatorial approach to the program, by linking the fellowship more directly to an active Design Trust project. In turn, the photographer’s artistic vision brings a new perspective, informing and illuminating the potential of our city’s undiscovered and under-used public spaces.
The Photo Urbanism Fellowship is supported in part by the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs.